Yup, the worse thing about Days Gone were the characters. Made the game feel more generic than it is. Is there anyone who gave a fuck about them?
The game was fun though.
The game was fun though.
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“Generic white dude video game protagonist.” How does this trend/phrase make you feel?
- Thread starter Spring-Loaded
- Start date
If a game/franchise/series does not have source material to go off of, there's no reason the protagonist(s) should be exclusively a bland white male.
Uncharted, Splinter Cell, Watch Dogs 1, Assassin's Creed 1-Revelations+4, Mass Effect, RDR, Infamous 1 & 2, Deus Ex HR+MD, and hundreds other games all are guilty of this.
Excluding Spider-Man, Witcher, and others that are based off of source materials with different backgrounds. i.e. - Spidey was created in the 60s as a relatable white teenager with teenager problems. People were still blatantly racist and most media caricatures were predominantly white up until Black Panther, who was the first mainstream hero and he showed up in the mid-60s, a good 4 years after Spidey. Witcher is Polish-based and their entire Polish community was predominately white in the 90s, so The Last Wish was written as a fantasy novel with white characters that made sense to create in that region during that time.
So unless the game has some sort of source material that is pulling from a source that created within a region and time period where society hadn't fully diversified yet, OR the story of the game takes place within a region that is predominately white (i.e Assassin's Creed II & Brotherhood), it's unexcusable/blatant bullshit that the protagonist is exclusively a white male.
There's nothing that resonates with the same character being represented over and over in different genres. Like sure you can have bold personalities like Nathan Drake, but he's still a generic white male. Sure you can have a stoic hacker like Aiden Pearce, but he's still a generic white male.
We need more Marcus Holloways, more Delsin Rowes, More Ratonhnhaké꞉tons, more Chloe Frazers, more Wei Shens. People with different cultural backgrounds rather than "dark depressing backstories."
Without looking it up, I dare someone to name 20 characters of color that are the main protagonists (not side characters) of a series. Just 20. There are THOUSANDS of games out there, name 20 playable PoC protagonists. You'll realize it's very easy to name 20 white male protagonists vs any other race.
Uncharted, Splinter Cell, Watch Dogs 1, Assassin's Creed 1-Revelations+4, Mass Effect, RDR, Infamous 1 & 2, Deus Ex HR+MD, and hundreds other games all are guilty of this.
Excluding Spider-Man, Witcher, and others that are based off of source materials with different backgrounds. i.e. - Spidey was created in the 60s as a relatable white teenager with teenager problems. People were still blatantly racist and most media caricatures were predominantly white up until Black Panther, who was the first mainstream hero and he showed up in the mid-60s, a good 4 years after Spidey. Witcher is Polish-based and their entire Polish community was predominately white in the 90s, so The Last Wish was written as a fantasy novel with white characters that made sense to create in that region during that time.
So unless the game has some sort of source material that is pulling from a source that created within a region and time period where society hadn't fully diversified yet, OR the story of the game takes place within a region that is predominately white (i.e Assassin's Creed II & Brotherhood), it's unexcusable/blatant bullshit that the protagonist is exclusively a white male.
There's nothing that resonates with the same character being represented over and over in different genres. Like sure you can have bold personalities like Nathan Drake, but he's still a generic white male. Sure you can have a stoic hacker like Aiden Pearce, but he's still a generic white male.
We need more Marcus Holloways, more Delsin Rowes, More Ratonhnhaké꞉tons, more Chloe Frazers, more Wei Shens. People with different cultural backgrounds rather than "dark depressing backstories."
Without looking it up, I dare someone to name 20 characters of color that are the main protagonists (not side characters) of a series. Just 20. There are THOUSANDS of games out there, name 20 playable PoC protagonists. You'll realize it's very easy to name 20 white male protagonists vs any other race.
I think right now it's an especially vulnerable conversation and maybe a bit insensitive to have, considering all the unrest and heightened feelings, but in short, I think it's good people point out things that are just sort of arbitrary and propagated for the sake of branding.
I love a lot of game protagonists and I'm white myself, so I can't deny they selected people like me as a target audience, but that being said I love diverse casts and I'm personally a bit sick of seeing the "military guy, stepping towards the center with a gun and arched eyebrows!" kind of look.
I remember when they pitched Watch Dogs at E3. The introduction was jaw-dropping: "ctOS, a smart-city system that manages entire cities to solve complex problems". Holy shit, this is sci fi, and this is a cool game where you hack things to tap into the injustices and increasing police-state of society! This is deep.
"...You play as Aiden Pearce, a man SHAPED by violence, who is on a quest for personal revenge."
Fucking what. And he is the most generic-ass coat-wearing whiteboy that has ever been focus-grouped into existence. Watch Dogs lived and died the same day it was announced. Those 3 minutes of introduction exposition was glorious, and then they just had to reveal this horrible protagonist, that statistically everyone asked for, but creatively and soulfully, no one did.
I love a lot of game protagonists and I'm white myself, so I can't deny they selected people like me as a target audience, but that being said I love diverse casts and I'm personally a bit sick of seeing the "military guy, stepping towards the center with a gun and arched eyebrows!" kind of look.
I remember when they pitched Watch Dogs at E3. The introduction was jaw-dropping: "ctOS, a smart-city system that manages entire cities to solve complex problems". Holy shit, this is sci fi, and this is a cool game where you hack things to tap into the injustices and increasing police-state of society! This is deep.
"...You play as Aiden Pearce, a man SHAPED by violence, who is on a quest for personal revenge."
Fucking what. And he is the most generic-ass coat-wearing whiteboy that has ever been focus-grouped into existence. Watch Dogs lived and died the same day it was announced. Those 3 minutes of introduction exposition was glorious, and then they just had to reveal this horrible protagonist, that statistically everyone asked for, but creatively and soulfully, no one did.
I'm not against them, but they're the least interesting thing a game can have as the protagonist for me. Protagonists in games are typically meant to be relatable but still their own character, as a lot of games are designed with some degree of player self-insertion intended. But any game with a defined (as opposed to player created) character also probably needs them to at least act as a character interacting with others and having pre-defined motives just like any other story.
Considering that, it always piques my interest to see a game with something other than the standard white male protagonist because it's something different and potentially interesting for the characters motivations and story because of that. There are all sorts of motives to be explored from all kinds of people. When I see a white male protagonist, I don't think "Oh this is boring" but when I see something else I DO think "Oh this is interesting."
Considering that, it always piques my interest to see a game with something other than the standard white male protagonist because it's something different and potentially interesting for the characters motivations and story because of that. There are all sorts of motives to be explored from all kinds of people. When I see a white male protagonist, I don't think "Oh this is boring" but when I see something else I DO think "Oh this is interesting."
There is a tendency, due to the culture in which we live, to assume that generic and average is a white guy. Everything else is "diversity". It is the reason why Daisy and Minnie are Mickey and Donald with a bow, it is assumed that the default design is masculine and that a complement is required to be a woman.
I totally agree. Watch Dogs 2 protagonist was a marked improvement even if he is still more the "straight man" to the wackier side characters. But still less of a generic template.
Far Cry 4 player character is probably my least favorite because he just goes along with everything assigned to him without asking any questions. That in turn means the player has no agency in relation to the game's plot. Maybe that's the point but that game's storytelling is overall made by someone who thinks they are more clever than they really are.
The gender and color of the character's skin has little relevance to him or her being interesting, writing is what makes those characters come alive. If you are going to have a template character for player self-insertion it would be nice to have some basic character creator offering gender and skin color options so people can pick a character that represents them. Or is the opposite of them if they so prefer.
I just want more body type diversity. At first it may seem like things has become better when men don't have big muscles and women don't have curves. But now it's pretty much PR suicude if the main character doesn't look like a generic tall and slim clothes model. It's boring.
I think my option falls in line with some of the others that posted here; them being the same race and gender of the most prevalent character design is simply one small part in a litany of different things that can make a character seem generic. I say seem because in truth, a criticism like that based off race and gender is pretty surface level honestly. Good character is about presenting interesting personalities and character motivations. Good character design is about making distinct characters, but it is also about communicating the personality of the character and the world through their design. Both of these can be accomplished even with the limitation of only having white male characters, you can see TF2 and many others for a demonstration of this.
So I can get why people would be resistant to the "generic white male" label, because in virtually all circumstances the reason as to why the character is generic has everything to do with the cardboard personality, and not much (if anything) to do with their race or gender.
So I can get why people would be resistant to the "generic white male" label, because in virtually all circumstances the reason as to why the character is generic has everything to do with the cardboard personality, and not much (if anything) to do with their race or gender.